The Malik Report

As noted earlier this evening, the Detroit Red Wings will have to give Jakub Kindl and Mike Commodore at least a few weeks’ worth of attempts to regain their jobs—alongside the newly-acquired Kyle Quincey—as Jonathan Ericsson was lost to a broken wrist, as reported by MLive’s Ansar Khan...

Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said defenseman Jonathan Ericsson will be out one month with a chipped fracture in his left wrist.

Ericsson was injured early in the second period, apparently when he was hit by the puck while killing a penalty. It apparently happened before his right wrist was hit by Gabriel Landeskog’s stick on the follow-through of a shot in front of the Detroit net.

Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson, who’d been paired with Quincey since his arrival on Thursday, fractured his left wrist less than a minute into the second period of a 4-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena and will miss at least the next four weeks.

“He’s going to be out a month,” coach Mike Babcock said. “Bit of a chipped fracture in his wrist, so he’ll be about a month.”

Ericsson was on the ice to start the second period as part of a penalty-killing unit trying to thwart the remaining 33 seconds of a Colorado power play that began at the end of the first. After taking a spill in the left circle of the defensive zone off the opening faceoff, he started playing one-handed for the rest of his shift.

He finished the shift, the Wings killed off the penalty and he left the ice without returning. Detroit will now likely use Quincey as its every-game fifth defenseman and go back to picking his partner—either rookie Jakub Kindl or veteran Mike Commodore—on a game-to-game basis until Ericsson returns.

Ericsson has one goal and nine assists, but is plus-18 and his 6-foot-4, 221-pound frame will be missed in front of the net defensively.

“It gave me a chance to play with everybody, that’s for sure,” said Quincey, who played with different partners throughout the third period with only five active defensemen left. “Big E is a big loss for us. Hopefully it’s not too serious and we can get him back soon.”

Khan believes that the Wings may have to acquire yet another depth defenseman, but given the going rate for said players and the Wings’ pretty clear need for some reinforcements up front as Pavel Datsyuk won’t be skating until Monday—meaning that he’s anywhere between 4 and 7 days away from returning from knee surgery—I’m guessing that Holland will see what Kindl and Commodore can do when given secnod chances.

Ericsson was injured during his first shift of the second period when he was struck by a puck above the glove from a Gabriel Landeskog shot in the slot.

“Everybody wants depth at this time of year,” Holland said. “It’s the NHL, it’s a physical game, there’s going to be injuries.”

Fortunately for the Wings, they have a surplus of defensemen with Jakub Kindl and Mike Commodore in town, and veteran Doug Janik and rookie Brendan Smith down in Grand Rapids. The Wings can expand the roster without restrictions beginning Monday once the NHL trade deadline passes.

The Griffins are in desperate playoff straits themselves, so I don’t expect them to be donating defensemen to the Wings for the sake of an extra body, but I do believe that if Kindl and Commodore falter, we’ll see Janik and Smith rotated in in short order.

Seriously, I know Babs thinks Commodore is a fatty but he’s looked damn stable when he’s been given playing time. Now is not the time to play Kindl and hope he improves significantly on the fly. He’s been piss poor for over a month. St. Louis, and even Nashville, aren’t going away and I suspect they’ll both be upgrading their rosters by tomorrow. It’s time for Detroit to upgrade theirs by way of what they already have. And hey, if all else fails maybe Sammy Pahlsson will be on the way to save the day!

Ericsson has one goal and nine assists, but is plus-18 and his 6-foot-4, 221-pound frame will be missed in front of the net defensively.

Seriously, I know Babs thinks Commodore is a fatty but he’s looked damn stable when he’s been given playing time.

Per-game, Kindl is a lot better offensively, takes fewer penalties, and isn’t much worse defensively. It’s not that Commodore is bad, but that Kindl is better, and he can get even better, which isn’t likely for Commodore. The only major advantage Commodore brings over Kindl is size and grit.

Posted by
bleep bloop
on 02/26/12 at 08:34 AM ET

What Chet said. I liked what I saw of Ericsson when he was playing alongside Quincey, who seemed to calm him down…Losing Ericsson now hurts, no matter what you might think of him, because he does do his job decently. He’s never going to be the player we were told to expect him to be, but in his own way, he does get the job done.

Losing Ericsson now hurts, no matter what you might think of him, because he does do his job decently.

OK, so Ericsson played better for three games with Quincey, but we haven’t seen Quincey/Kindl or Quincey/Commodore yet, so you can’t unequivocally say it hurts to lose him because it’s entirely possible that Kindl and/or Commodore will play better with Quincey than they played with Ericsson too. It could turn out to be a blessing that Ericsson moves off the roster to give Quincey a chance to play with someone good and prove his mettle.

No it doesn’t. In the short term it could mean that they have to call up Smith, and on another thread Holland is quoted as saying that they’d like to get Smith into a couple of NHL games before the playoffs start, so in actuality it HELPS them because it means that they can call him up and not be carrying nine defensemen on the roster.

It also means that Kindl gets more time to show what he’s worth and that Mike Commodore might actually get a chance to play with Quincey and show whether he would fit on that third pairing.

It doesn’t hurt their depth because he didn’t die or go to the KHL. He’s out for a month. He’s coming back. And it doesn’t hurt their trading prospects because again, he’s coming back. And he wasn’t going to be the one who was traded even though some people might wish that there was a possibility he was going to be. And if they were to decide to trade someone on the roster it would’ve been one of their co-7th men, Kindl or Commodore, and that can still happen because they have Smith and Janik who could easily plug into the 7th spot for the short term.

This is a great opportunity to decide who should be the #6 defenseman based on merit rather than the fact that you want to play the guy you’re paying $3M+ for.

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